There's be a minor hue and cry over the cancellation of the final US Senate debate between Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren. But given the devastation in the northeast, the ongoing power outages, and the very real concern for cleanup efforts, it seems to me the right call was made.

Now whether the debate should have been cancelled or rescheduled is another matter entirely. There isn't much time for the latter and I'm not sure anyone other than Brown and Warren partisans will much care.

Debates are, by design, confrontational. And as people settle in tonight after two days of a mighty storm that has tested their friends, neighbors, and families, they were not likely to want to curl up to a political debate.

The larger context matters and a political feud the night after a terrible storm is not good timing.

Beyond the context, this final debate was not likely to change the contours of the race that has been set by three previous debates and a year's worth of campaigning on the stump and through advertising.

The debates were not thematic and covered a range of issues. Tonight's debate could have gone into new issue areas the might have shed some additional light on what the candidates believe. But chances are great, given outside events, that mostly Brown and Warren activists and well-informed voters who have already decided for whom to cast their vote would have made up the bulk of the viewership.

To be sure, Sandy has intruded on the ability of the candidates to make their closing arguments in a final debate. Given the timing and the effects of the storm, the race may just be frozen in time as a close contest that now hinges on who is better at turning out the vote next week.